Innisfree Garden is an American nonprofit public garden influenced by Chinese style in Millbrook, New York. The garden was established between 1930 and 1960 as the private garden of Walter and Marion Beck, inspired by scroll paintings of the 8th-century Chinese poet and painter Wang Wei. With the help of landscape architect Lester Collins from Harvard University, individual garden scenes inspired by the Chinese paintings were connected to an overall landscape around a glacial lake, in keeping with the ecological surroundings.
Detail with rocks and wall
Wang Wei was a Chinese musician, painter, poet, and politician of the middle Tang dynasty. He is regarded as one of the most distinguished men of arts and letters of his era. About 400 of his poems survived and 29 of them are included in the 18th-century anthology Three Hundred Tang Poems. A large portion of his finest poems drew inspirations from the local landscape.
Riders on Horseback, Northern Qi dynasty, the general area of the rebel heartland, although of an earlier date
A modern picture from Mount Hua, in the Qinling Mountain Range, perhaps suggesting some of the area's wild and rugged features which still exist today, and that would have also been enjoyed by Wang Wei and his friends.
Photograph of Wang Wei's Snowy River. Formerly part of the Manchu Family Collection, Beijing, now lost.